For St David: Glamorgan Patties with Balsamic Cannellini Sauce and Chilli Samphire

Dydd Sul hapus!

Sorry, that was probably grammatically incorrect and spelled wrong. And pronounced in a dodgy accent. And it's a day late - this whole post is in celebration of St David's Day, which was obviously yesterday. The truth is, I've never much looked into Welsh culture or cuisine, and I have absolutely no excuses for this. Admittedly, the Welsh do like their meat and seafood, but I don't often see tomatoes in their classic recipes - and I do see leeks, potatoes, flours, seaweed, cakes and cheese, all of which are things that make me immensely happy.

So I'd really be a terrible person if I didn't attempt to remake the naturally tomatoless, and equally naturally meatless, Glamorgan sausages. Plump in texture and bouncing with cheese and herby goodness, these little balls of comfort just look a bit joyous. They are also an absolute pleasure for your sense of smell: as creamy butter marries a pretty chilled out leek, freshly cut thyme - which is perhaps up there with one of my favourite smells - converts your kitchen into a very tempting place. I realise I'm personifying the Glamorgan sausage a bit: this is probably because I'd happily be friends with it. It's also great for an interesting Sunday Roast equivalent, and I'm anticipating that once the weather gets a bit warmer you could take them cold to a picnic. It really is irrelevant if St David is about or not.

A few notes about my own creation. You will notice that I've named the dish 'patties' as opposed to 'sausages'... this was the result of a pretty big - but not lifechanging - mistake. I'm going to do my best to mumble said mistake so I don't look so ridiculous. I-used-up-all-the-breadcrumbs-in-my-dough-when-I-was-supposed-to-save-at-least-75g-to-coat-the-dough-in-afterwards. Yep. This means my final dough was less mouldable, fell apart quite easily, and did not want to become a sausage shape. It also means I had no breadcrumbs to coat my patties in. In the end I used plain wholemeal flour to do this (I thought wholemeal was more 'crumby' than white...) and the result was fine, but please try and use the recipe that I was supposed to, as I reckon your result will be much better that way.

I was also mega excited to find some samphire when I went ingredient shopping, immediately deciding that this would be included in the dish. I love the distinctive saltiness of this crazy green and it went so well with the patties - you could even  argue it was relevant, as it's seasalty taste could nod to the Welsh laver, if it really tried to.

Finallly, I have to wholeheartedly apologise. You should of course use caerphilly or a Welsh cheddar for this, of which I could find absolutely none. I used a strong Westcountry cheddar which worked beautifully but obviously didn't have true authenticity. It was still delicious though.

Enough talking - you should really make this dish as soon as possible!

Glamorgan Patties with Balsamic Cannellini Sauce and Chilli Samphire

1) Melt the butter in a pan and add the leek. In general you should use one whole leek, but mine was pretty massive, so I used about two thirds. Heat on low for about 8 minutes until the leeks are nice and soft and there is a comforting smell dancing around the kitchen.

2) In a large bowl, mix 100g of the breadcrumbs, the thyme, parsley, and cheese, then add the leeks when done. In a seperate bowl or cup, whisk up the yolks with the mustard and a good pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper. Fold this carefully into the leeks and mix really well, until you have a pretty stiff dough, that looks and smells like a glorious stuffing.

3) Spread out the remaining breadcrumbs on a plate. Take pieces of the dough and shape into little patties - I made 10 in all but if you want to make bigger shapes, feel free. Dip each patty in the eggwhite and then coat in the crumbs, and move directly onto a lined baking sheet. Once you've done them all, place in the fridge for a minimum of half an hour - I was lucky enough to have about three hours for mine.

4) Preheat the oven to 170C. The patties will need about 12 mins, and turning half way through, so place them in the oven according to when you make the remaining elements. Make the sauce: heat some oil in a pan and add the onion - leave to soften for about 5 mins.You don't want them to brown. Add the beans, give it a stir and add the vinegars and soy sauce. Heat on high for about a minute and then simmer for about 5-6.

5) Prepare the vegetables. Heat a little olive oil or butter in a pan and add the samphire, green beans, garlic and chilli. Stir fry for 3-4 mins.

6) Serve, serve, serve! Put all your elements together, ensuring you have some pickled beetroot on the side and a healthy dollop of mayonnaise.

I had four patties leftover - I'm going to serve them with hummous, halloumi and salad for a light dinner tomorrow.

Guys, the next time a Go Compare advert comes on, close your eyes and take a breath - channel everything into conjuring up your own vision for Glamorgan patties. Because they're friendly, comforting and excitable little creations... and they want you to eat them. Mwynhau!

Served: We took three patties each for two people, with four left over. Depending on your preferred portion size, you could stretch this dish to suit 2-4 eaters.
Took: About 20 mins to prep the dough - then there's the chilling time - then 15-20 mins to complete the final part.
Things that went wrong: Yes, I know I threw every single breadcrumb into the dough mixture and so couldn't make sausage shapes, I know! And I also couldn't find Welsh cheese. This didn't defect too much from the final product, and apart from my silly mistake this was a pretty easy thing to make.

There will always be Brick Lane: Valentine's at City Spice

One of the biggest tests I put to restaurants is to provide me with a completely tomatoless dish, that, maybe after a moment of bewilderment, is put together with enthusiasm and perhaps a little creativity. That's if there's not something suitable and wonderful on the menu already. I don't believe anyone should have to put up with something that's been thrown together with resentment or a second class finish rate, because my (or your) ridiculous needs are annoying. If they are in fact so annoying that simply nothing can be made for me in a style that's going to be nice to eat, I'd rather be told by the restaurant that actually, I'd better go somewhere else.

So with all this said, why - why - do I keep returning to Brick Lane? I have had more fresh tomatoes coming up next to me bhajis than I've chosen to believe. There is certainly an undeniable charm to the place (charm in the sense where there are people shouting at you from all angles to convince you to come to their restaurant), a neon horizon that welcomes you vividly to East London, and I guess you just can't beat a rice, naan, starter, main AND bottle of wine for a tenner (or £12 on  busier night).

It's not necessarily the best place for my nerves, though. I always get an intense trepidation that actually, despite my explanations, there's a big squirt of tomato puree swimming around in that earthy-coloured sauce. I worry that each dish is made in a huge vat and there's no resource, space or desire to make me something from scratch if the original recipe contains those juicy fiends. One day, my mind was put at ease slightly...

A group of friends and I got in the middle of what was very nearly a full-on fight between two Brick Lane restaurateurs, wrestling for our custom. One promised a cheaper deal, the other promised more - and better quality - wine. Being an already tipsy mix of English, Irish, Brazilian and French people, we opted for the deal with the wine and promptly chose our starters, mains, rices etc. There was no tomato served with my bhajis... I was in a place which heeded my plight and I appreciated that. Three bottles of wine later and after several debates with various people in the restaurant, the waiter offered to take us down into the kitchen! This statement, in my opinion, deserves much more exclamation marks, but grammatically I can only give it one. A Brick Lane kitchen! I'd heard rumours, the ones we've all heard that we don't want to believe. Greasy spaces, old, non-fresh ingredients, I'd even heard about one massive long kitchen that spanned underneath the whole of this East End street... and am delighted to say that none of them are true. The kitchen was relatively small, super clean, and vibrant with fresh ingredients and spices. The waiter challenged me to taste all the spices and guess them (I got them all right, FYI) and I got a little taste of a freshly made gulapjamon. I even stepped into the fridge. This, tomatophobes and tomatophiles, was a place which could very easily - and happily it seemed - adapt well-known recipes in a fresh way and serve them up to needy customer like myself. People - Brick Lane is the dealtastic, fountain of Indian food that we all dared to hope it might be!

This why me and the VT-BF chose to go back on Valentine's Day. The beginning of 2014 had not been kind financially and we were ready to treat ourselves to some cheap but nice food. Coming from the Shoreditch end, we settled for the very first deal that came to us, which was from City Spice, as the VT-BF was too hungry for banter. We've been to this one a few times and really enjoy it - the set menu isn't limited to your usual dhansaks, masalas etc, and the owner is great - I think he's been there over 20 years.

Unfortunately - and I use that word with all passion and seriousness - the food wasn't quite up there this time.It was the one occasion we chose to omit the onion bhajis so I'm happy to accept some of the blame. The fried potato cakes came up with a nice chunk of fresh tomato and tasted a bit school dinner. The aubergine dahl that I got was pretty nice, as was the beautifully fragranced pilau rice, and there weren't too many complaints to go with the VT-BF's Butter Chicken, but the wine wasn't up to scratch (I know you can't really expect it to be - but 'actual nice quality wine' was one of the conditions of that night's offer!).

But do you know what, it was Valentine's Day, we've had nice wine there before... I'm not usually so lenient but I'm happy to suggest this one time was a slight glitch. You should still go to City Spice, and all the other restaurants in Brick Lane, because... you just should. And that's a valid reason, it really is.

Would I recommend this restaurant? Yes, I got a tomato with my second rate potato, but this is one time I don't care quite so much. Yes, go - go now!